One month has passed since the BBC’s investigative journalism report, and the public has received no answers regarding the chemical poisoning case - we are demanding an international investigation, stated Giorgi Sioridze, a member of Strong Georgia – Lelo.

According to his assessment, the investigation conducted by the State Security Service (SSS) was aimed not at uncovering the truth, but at concealing it.

“The SSS staged a shameful spectacle - a so-called five-day ‘investigation’ - and naturally, we received no answers, because their goal was not to establish the truth, but to cover it up. We demand an international investigation. International mechanisms exist at the level of the UN, PACE, the International Criminal Court, and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. This is the only type of investigation we trust, because a state crime has likely been committed, for which ‘Georgian Dream’ must be held accountable, and we must learn what exactly we were poisoned with last December,” Sioridze said.

According to the BBC, the evidence it collected indicates that the Georgian authorities used World War I–era chemical weapons last year to suppress anti-government protests. As the BBC writes, demonstrators protesting the Georgian government’s suspension of the EU accession process reported various symptoms - including burning eyes, shortness of breath, coughing, and vomiting - which persisted for weeks.

The BBC also reports that World Service journalists spoke with chemical weapons experts, Georgian special forces representatives, and doctors, and found that “the evidence points to the use of an agent referred to by the French military as ‘Camite.’”